After resting a few days I started to the city to look Jim up, and found him without any trouble. His money was about all gone, and he was anxious for me to go to the mountains with him on a trapping expedition the coming winter, saying he was tired of laying around doing nothing but drink whiskey. We made arrangements to start in two or three weeks from that time, provided my shoulder would permit. Jim agreed to go to Sacramento when we were ready to start and get my horses, and I returned to the Fort to have my broken shoulder taken care of. Now, as I have said before, I don't think there was ever a young man that suffered from bashfulness as I did during what time I was in the company of ladies. At that time I thought Mrs. Elliott was doing all she could to tease me, but since I have grown older and learned a little more about civilization, I am convinced that it was for my own good, thinking that I might overcome my timidity to a certain extent by having me go in society. Nearly every day while at the Fort she would either ask me in the afternoon to go in company with her to visit some lady friend, or would want me to stay at her house to receive some lady company, and frequently I have accompanied her to a neighbor's house where there were young ladies, and I would have given every horse that I owned to have been away. But Mrs. Elliott had been almost like a mother to me, and I could not refuse to go with her when she requested me to do so. After I had been at the Fort about two weeks Mrs. Elliott said she was going to give another party, but I told her I had a lawful excuse this time for not dancing, as the surgeon would not allow me to dance on account of my shoulder. Among the balance of Mrs. Elliott's lady friends was Lieut. Jackson's wife, who, by the way, was one of the loveliest and best women I have ever met. Her husband had been ordered the past summer out to Arizona, and was at that time establishing a new fort, which was known afterwards as Fort Yuma. Mrs. Jackson was expecting to go soon to join her husband at Fort Yuma, and as I was going on to the waters of the Gila, trapping, she insisted on my waiting and going in company with them. Finally, after stopping around the Fort three weeks, the surgeon told me by a certain time, which was nearly a week, I might start out, and if I was careful I would be perfectly safe. I went down to the city, and Jim Beckwith and I agreed on the time to start, after which I returned to the Fort. The evening before I was to start, every army officer at the Fort, there being twenty-eight in number, and every lady, married and single, came to Mrs. Elliott's house. When I asked her what all this meant, she said: "I suppose they have come to bid you good- bye." But it was not long until I knew the object of the meeting, for some one in the crowd sang out: "Choose partners for a quadrille!" and in a jiffy there was a double set on the floor, and the floor manager said: "All ready."